The Spy Who Divorced Me

The Washington Post has served up a juicy story about the secrecy surrounding the divorces of CIA agents and their non-spook spouses. Hoo-boy, is it worth a read.

The gist is this: being married to a spy, while occasionally very exciting and awesome, is probably not worth the mental anguish you will almost certainly endure as a direct result of your union.

The Post's narrative is centered around the divorce proceedings of a Virginia woman who met her husband online in 2005. At the time, he told her he worked for the State Department, which is a dead giveaway that someone is a sexy, sexy spy.

Well, maybe not a sexy, sexy spy.

"It's not like I saw him and thought, ‘Oh, he's a hunk,' " the woman said. "He was average-looking, which I later learned made him good at his job."

Burn, girl. You burned him good. Recent divorcées, throw your hands in the air and say "Yeeeeeah."

When her man finally did reveal his real profession to her, he declined to tell her anything more than "I'm a spy and I can't talk about it," which is a dead giveaway that someone is definitely, definitely not a spy (generally).

But a spy he was and marry they did—a destination wedding in fact. Then, on the flight home from said wedding, the woman noticed that her husband appeared to be "eyeing the movements of several foreign looking young men." He refused to confirm or deny her suspicions.

She had, for really real, married a spy.

Of course, the woman immediately began to wonder if their whole wedding had been nothing more than a cover for her husband. She began to wonder if he had his own surveillance. She began to wonder if he was, perhaps, a double agent (TWIST).

The Post write-up also includes an excerpt from a police report written in 2009, when cops were called to the couple's house following a domestic dispute. It reads like something out of a movie:

"I felt that [the husband] was the primary aggressor," the officer wrote, adding the following sentence, which has since been redacted: "[The wife] did want it noted that [her husband] works undercover operations for the CIA, and that he has used his line of work to intimidate her in the past as well as tonight."

Seriously, you should go read that article and then look your loved one dead in the eye tonight and ask "Are you a spy?"

No matter what the response, know in your heart that it is a lie.

Other things we learned from the Post piece:1) The Central Intelligence Agency gets involved in family court cases to protect the identity of undercover officers.2) CIA operatives earn "close to $100,000" per year (or, this one does, at any rate). That seems low, right?3) An easy way to be a dick to your wife is to cite "National Security Privilege" and "Military and State Secrets Privilege" any time she asks you a personal question.